Book Description

World Agriculture and the Environment presents a unique assessment of agricultural commodity production and the environmental problems it causes, along with prescriptions for increasing efficiency and reducing damage to natural systems. Drawing on his extensive travel and research in agricultural regions around the world, and employing statistics from a range of authoritative sources including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the author examines twenty of the world’s major crops, including beef, coffee, corn, rice, rubber, shrimp, sorghum, tea, and tobacco. For each crop, he offers comparative information including:

• a “fast facts” overview section that summarizes key data for the crop
• main producing and consuming countries
• main types of production
• market trend information and market chain analyses
• major environmental impacts
• management strategies and best practices
• key contacts and references

Customer Reviews (2)

Quick review
World Agriculture and Environment in my opinion is a very interestig book, in which you can find, besides the basic information of agricultural production, techniques that help to reduce damage to natural systems, and also this book gives important evaluations of modern agriculture and its failure.

Superb reference
This is a superb and unique reference.It provides an incredible amount of detail on crops that enter world trade, and their impact on the environment.
The very best thing about this book is that it is not strident and does not blatantly advocate a particular political agenda.It is written in a scientific, objective tone that makes it far more convincing than the rhetorical works.Only when he comes to tobacco (a crop that ruins the environment AND then ruins the consumers) does he use a few value-laden words!
The reader is struck by what a mess the world is in, and how easily we could fix a lot of that.The book provides enormous detail on soil erosion, chemical use, biodiversity reduction, and the rest of our woes, but it presents equal detail on how to prevent those problems.Only a few crops (notably cotton, salmon, chocolate) would be hard to manage well.
Two social themes stand out:first, the very rapid concentration of commodity trade in the hands of a very few firms; second, the degree to which governments subsidize production-at-any-cost as opposed to production-with-environmental-protection.(Subsidizing includes nonlegal subsidies, such as letting the rich get away with breaking environmental laws and dumping huge costs on poorer neighbors.)One cannot escape the conclusion that changing this subsidy structure would fix most of the damage, worldwide.
Environmentalists should think more about subsidies!
Meanwhile, what can a concerned reader do?The book tells how to seek out shade-grown coffee, responsibly raised beef and paper, and so on.It is much harder, at least in the US, to find decently-produced soybeans or corn or wheat, but you can do it.Cotton is a special problem, and the alternatives to it are mostly worse.The hemp advocates will be vocal!
We are in such a mess, and it would be so easy to do so much....This is not a time to lose hope or give up.By providing the big picture, this book should make every concerned citizen stop and think. The few errors I could spot in the book are trivial ones.
This is an absolute must-read and must-have for anyone who works on problems of production and environment or on problems of world food supply and health. ... Read more

Book Description
Discussing the range of effects of pesticides on food and human safety, water quality, wildlife, and pest management, this book explores the agricultural, economic, and regulatory factors that affect pesticide use. It examines crop and pest ecology, integrated pest management principles, and emerging analytical tools to improve the efficacy and cost-efficiency of pest control. Expert contributions describe the current status of pesticides issues and those related to pest management. The book summarizes advances and trends in the crop protection industry, such as integrated pest management, hybrid seed and generic pesticide production, improved pesticide formulations, and plant biotechnology. ... Read more

Book Description

This volume covers all aspects of fundamental and applied nitrogen-fixation research, extending from biochemistry and chemistry through genetics, regulation and physiology to agricultural practice and environmental impact. It describes recent progress on studies of potential catalysts for nitrogen fixation; how the N₂-fixing process is regulated in living cells; the use and impact of genetics and genomics on our understanding of the biological process; the wide variety of associations of nitrogen-fixing microbes with plants, including the formalized Rhizobium-legume and actinorrhizal associations as well as the less formalized associative and endophytic interactions; and the impact of nitrogen fixation in agriculture and forestry, including its effect on the environment. This volume provides an up-to-date referenced source, which can be readily accessed by all practicing and otherwise interested proponents of nitrogen fixation research, including those with related interests in the areas of plant and microbial science, genomics, plant-microbe interactions, genetics and regulation, plant growth and biocontrol, agriculture, forestry, ecology, taxonomy and evolution.

Book Description
`This book is a very useful collection for those interested in the impact of agriculture on water resources, and on the allocation of water resources within the agricultural system. It pulls together most of the important theoretical papers since the early 1980s on the economics of non-point pollution control. The book also shows how interdisciplinary modelling has improved our understanding of water quality and quantity issues, and how better management of water resources generates real economic benefits. It will be of interest to all economists working in this area, whether academic or professional, as well as to water managers.'

- Nick Hanley, University of Glasgow, UK

The global expansion of irrigated lands during the 20th century and beyond continues to contribute to food production, but also degrades the environment significantly. The consequent search for policy remedies has stimulated a vital body of economic research.

The issues addressed in this comprehensive collection of previously published articles include the effects of existing government intervention on the environmental impacts of agriculture, the economic costs and benefits of environmental regulations for agriculture, and the economic and environmental merits of alternative mechanisms for water allocation and water quality protection.

In this volume the editors present a sampling of economic research on the interface of irrigated agriculture with the environment. The articles included are by leading researchers in this field and span the topics of nonpoint pollution control, salinity management, and the allocation of water. ... Read more

Book Description
No other book in this field covers such a wide range of topics and can be applied to as many geographic areas as Agriculture, Fertilizers, and the Environment.The book is divided into three sections: the first dealing with sustainability in agriculture and the challenges to produce enough food while caring for the environment, the second with the benefits and problems of fertilizer use, and the third covers the possibilities and challenges for increased food production in the future.These provide a balanced scientific review of the issues relating to fertilizer use and how its impact can be minimized. Anyone interested in the environment will find this book helpful, as well as those studying soil, crop and environmental science. ... Read more

Book Description

Although climate risk is a central concern of agriculture, lack of a unified approach constrains ongoing efforts to foster the use of seasonal climate forecasts. To fill this void, Methods in Applying Climate Forecasts in Agriculture offers a set of concepts for evaluating applications of seasonal climate forecasts in a comprehensive manner. This book provides an overview of the impacts of climate variability. It presents methods for analyzing historical agricultural data, simulating agricultural responses, and linking agricultural models with seasonal climate forecasts. It also addresses methods of assessing the use of climate forecasts in farm and policy decision-making at various levels.

Book Description
There is widespread public concern about the effects of nitrate derived from the use of fertilizers in farming on water quality and public health. But research on nitrate during the past decade has revealed wide discrepancies between public perceptions and reality. The main problems from nitrate are in fact ecological changes in coastal and estuarine waters and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. This gas, largely derived from nitrate, is a threat to the ozone layer in the stratosphere and is also a greenhouse gas. This book builds on Farming, Fertilizers, and the Nitrate Problem (CABI, 1991) by Addiscott, Whitmore, and Powlson, but has been restructured to take into account these new developments and to bring out more clearly the role of politics and economics in the "nitrate problem." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Comprehensive overview that's well written
This book caught my attention because of its title and my interest in nitrogen and the soil environment.It provided a well written overview of environmental aspects of soil nitrogen that revolves around good science.

Must read for anyone involved with basic issues surrounding soil nitrates and water quality or concerns about NOx gas emissions. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Resource: Engineering & Technology for a Sustainable World, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2006. The length of the article is 681 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Greening Antarctica.(Adventure)(University of Arizona's Controlled Environment Agriculture Program )
Author: Lane Patterson
Publication: Resource: Engineering & Technology for a Sustainable World (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 13Issue: 9Page: S12(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

This book is the self-contained fourth volume of a seven-volume comprehensive series on nitrogen fixation. The outstanding aspect of this book is the integration of basic and applied work on biological nitrogen fixation in the fields of agriculture, forestry, and ecology in general. Nowadays, the concept of sustainability, which originated in agriculture and land use, is reaching many other areas of society and industry. Sustainability has a major part to play in the global challenge of continued development of regions, countries, and continents all around the World and biological nitrogen fixation has a key role in this process. This volume begins with chapters specifically addressing crops of major global importance, such as soybeans, rice, and sugar cane. It continues with a second important focus, agroforestry, and describes the use and promise of both legume trees with their rhizobial symbionts and other nitrogen-fixing trees with their actinorhizal colonization. An over-arching theme of all chapters is the interaction of the plants and trees with microbes and this theme allows other aspects of soil microbiology, such as interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the impact of soil-stress factors on biological nitrogen fixation, to be addressed. Furthermore, a link to basic science occurs through the inclusion of chapters describing the biogeochemically important nitrogen cycle and its key relationships among nitrogen fixation, nitrification, and denitrification. The volume then provides an up-to-date view of the production of microbial inocula, especially those for legume crops. No other available work provides the up-to-date and in-depth coverage of this volume, which is intended to serve as an indispensable reference work for academic, government, and industrial scientists working in the applied areas of agronomy, plant breeding, plant nutrition, ecology, and forestry as well as those in the basic science areas of plant physiology, soil microbiology, and related environmental disciplines. This volume will be an invaluable tool for students entering this challenging area of research and will provide science administrators with ready access to vital relevant information.

Product Description
Phosphorus and its effect on the environment have become hotly contested issues by watershed managers, farmers, lakeside property owners, regulatory agencies, and politicians. This 1121 page monograph is a thorough discussion by 78 experts on topics ranging from the properties and sources of phosphorus in agriculture to strategies for its management in the environment. Learn about phosphorus and sources for agriculture, production and characteristics,reactions and cycling in soils, plant nutrition and crop management, animal nutrition, and more. ... Read more

Book Description
Apart from food and raw materials, agriculture can also provide ancillary benefits such as landscapes, biodiversity, cultural heritage and thriving rural communities. This book offers a state-of-the-art overview of strategies for sustainable management practices and their implementation through the adoption of suitable instruments. Such practices aim to sustain and support the multiple functions provided by agriculture and natural resources in the rural countryside. The authors explore the value of alternative governance structures and examine the design of policy models and institutional mechanisms for a range of different countries and agricultural methods. The empirical results allow them to identify successful examples as well as recognize practices which have failed. They can then transfer positive policies to geographical areas or production systems where effective and efficient strategies for the sustainable management of natural resources are urgently needed. In doing so, the authors hope to improve the design, identification and implementation of appropriate policy instruments to help sustain the rural economy in the future. They also aim to strengthen the establishment of markets for nature which overcome institutional constraints. This timely new book explores emerging perspectives on multifunctionality in agriculture and the rural environment. It will be widely read by academics, researchers and policymakers with an interest in agricultural and resource economics, environmental governance and sustainable development. ... Read more

Book Description
Depending on who is telling it, the history of Euro-American farmers on the Great Plains has been a story of either agricultural triumph or ecological failure—an optimistic tale of taming nature for human purposes or a dire account of disrupting nature and suffering the environmental consequences.

In On the Great Plains, author Geoff Cunfer poses an alternative scenario: that people were not the masters of nature on the Great Plains. Land use in America's vast interior prairies has stayed remarkably stable throughout the twentieth century, changing little as droughts came and went, as farmers shifted from horses to tractors, and as federal subsidies and fluctuating crop prices transformed the economics of farming. An equilibrium between natural and human forces emerged as farmers plowed and planted the same amount of cropland during most of this period, maintaining two-thirds of the Great Plains in unplowed, native vegetation.

To support his theory, Cunfer looks at the entire Great Plains (450 counties in ten states), tapping historical agricultural census data paired with GIS mapping to illuminate land use on the Great Plains over 130 years. Coupled with several community and family case studies, this database allows Cunfer to reassess the interaction between farmers and nature in the Great Plains agricultural landscape. ... Read more

Book Description
In a vast society where environmentally conscious nonfarming voters and consumers have grown to greatly outnumber those directly engaged in agriculture, what happens in agriculture becomes increasingly subject to control by the general society, as policies and laws cater to constituents and consumers. This book provides an overview of how Americans perceive and value farmers and examines public opinion with regard to a number of agricultural issues. Based on analysis of national survey data, the authors offer an empirically based discussion and interpretation of those views and perceptions that help to shape policy and social sustainability. This unique collection illustrates that in addition to its natural, biological, and economic risks, agriculture has social risks that reverberate through all levels of society. As the general population grows and the number of farms and farmers diminishes, the weight of public opinion becomes more important in the policy arena of society as well as in the market demands for food and fiber grown in safe and favorable environmental conditions. Setting the stage with a consideration of the larger society's interests in agricultural issues and of social and agricultural interdependence, the contributors cover a range of topics and issues affecting agriculture at the end of the 20th century. Chapters examine public perceptions of government's role in farming; support for an environmentally friendly agricultural system; views on pesticides and chemicals in foods; consumer attitudes on food safety; threats to clean drinking water, concerns over farm animal welfare; and the basic agrarian ethic of American society. The book concludes with a look to the future of the social risks of agriculture in the 21st century. ... Read more

Book Description

This book contains up-to-date studies on the economics of sustainable energy in agriculture. The studies focus on energy efficiency improvement and the use of biomass. Specific attention is paid to the economic aspects of land use and the competition for land, both for food production and dedicated energy crops. The book will be of special interest to economists, agronomists, energy experts, and politicians that deal with energy issues in agriculture, both in developing and industrialised countries.